Warning: This review contains spoilers.

After nearly sixteen years of storytelling, Robert Kirkman’s wildly successful Image comic book The Walking Dead has come to a surprising end. Following Rick Grimes’ equally shocking death in the prior issue (which we discussed here), which left fans such as your writer wondering just how in the hell the comic would continue without its lead character, the series is now making its entirely unexpected bow with issue #193. Titled “The Farm House”, this final, oversized installment (72 pages!) brings the long-running tale to its end – but does it do justice to Kirkman’s near two-decade long story?

Opening with a nearly playful “Previously” synopsis (“Sebastian Milton shot Rick Grimes. Then he shot him some more…”), the finale opens with a zombie shambling about in a large farmhouse yard. The walker nearly reaches the home’s doorstep before Michonne’s trusty kitana lops its head off, yet we soon discover that the person wielding the sword isn’t Michonne at all. Rather, it’s a middle-aged man wearing a beard and eyepatch. It’s only a panel or so before the big reveal: “Carl?!  Carl!”

That’s right, we’ve just witnessed an adult Carl Grimes taking down a walker, with his wife Sophia (!!!) calling after him. The comic has clearly taken a massive leap in time since the previous issue, and now presents a world that has moved on from the terror that it constantly faced in the immediate years after the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. People, by and large, are now nearly entirely safe from zombies, and have settled into something resembling civilization again. And this final issue takes great pains in pointing out that the safety that everyone now enjoys is due in large part to the efforts of Rick Grimes, who has been lionized in the years since his untimely death.

Like any great finale to a long-running story, “The Farm House” manages to both tell a complete story (a surprising conflict stemming from Carl’s zombie killing), all while catching up with all of the many characters who had populated the comic throughout the years to see where they wound up at in the future. Some may be somewhat expected (Michonne becomes a judge; Eugene uses that big brain of his to do his part in rebuilding civilization in a considerable way), while others…maybe not so much (Maggie and Glenn’s son Hershel grows up to be a pampered douche, not unlike Sebastian Milton; the long-vanished Negan is *mostly* a no-show). One of the final montages runs through a number of recognizable characters to show their new place in the world in a manner that reminded this fan of the final moments of HBO’s Six Feet Under (one of the greatest series finales television ever saw). As far as a satisfying conclusion for its various characters and its main storyline, this comic is aces.

But where it really succeeds is in summing up both the comic’s ultimate themes and the contributions its lead character made on its fictional world. In three key sequences, Kirkman sums up his entire run while paying proper homage to the character who saw him through it all. When Michonne has to give a ruling regarding the use of zombies as entertainment for the numbed masses, she recites a passage culled from the very first volume of The Walking Dead, which seems to nicely sum up the comic’s feeling on a society that grows complacent when it feels that it’s safe, and only comes alive when it’s forced to fight for its life. In another sequence, Carl notes his displeasure with a statue of his father, which presents Rick in a near-mythic light. His judgment on the statue and its mythologizing of a heroic everyman is perhaps a critique on many types of comic book storytelling and our need for larger than life heroes that rarely resemble the real world equivalent (“It’s just…he did enough that you shouldn’t have to fake it.”).

And finally, in an amazing sequence, a bedtime story is told which simultaneously takes us back to the beginning of the story, all while closing it all out and bringing it to a perfect end. I refuse to spoil the finer details of this scene (of any further details of this issue at all, really), except to quote its final line – “Read it again!” I imagine I will, time and time again.

In one issue, Robert Kirkman managed to elevate his quite wonderful, very addictive serial tale of zombies and survivors to one of this fan’s favorite comic book titles ever. In giving his comic book an ending, which so many other comics can never seem to have (be it for either cancellation, or running on infinitely with no possible conclusion in sight), Kirkman has revealed his masterwork. The Walking Dead isn’t merely one of the best horror comics to have ever hit the stands…

It’s one of the greatest comic books ever written.

Read it. Whether you’ve followed the title since the beginning, or if you’ve never picked it up before and need to start back at #1, make certain that you find your way to this issue. It’s engaging, enthralling, emotional, and ultimately…it’s just one helluva great bedtime story about humanity.

Mr. Kirkman – I doff my Sheriff’s hat to you, sir.